A woman in the federal sex trafficking case against the Alexander brothers is accusing them of a harassment campaign before the case heads to trial.
Identified in the indictment as Victim 1, the woman alleged in a court filing this week that disgraced brokers Tal and Oren, along with their brother Alon Alexander, used third parties to harass and retaliate against her for participating in the case. The woman claimed the defense, along with an investigator who covertly contacted her friends and a publicist who sought to cast doubt on the credibility of accusers, worked to “smear” her and spread misinformation.
The woman’s claims were outlined in a motion to quash two subpoenas, which requested she turn over Instagram account activity and electronic communication records across several platforms. Attorney Lilian Timmermann called the subpoenas “overly broad and unduly burdensome.”
Juda Engelmayer, a spokesperson for the Alexanders, said they would address the allegations in a response to be filed this week. Engelmeyer, whose clients include Harvey Weinstein and Sean “Diddy” Combs, was hired by the Alexanders last year as they prepared for their trial.
The woman alleges the harassment began after prosecutors revealed her identity to the defense. A man who described himself as an investigator contacted three of Victim 1’s friends, first identifying himself as working on behalf of the alleged victims, according to the filing. The investigator allegedly sought to “paint [Victim 1] as a ‘willing’ victim,” telling her friends that she “often blacked out” and “often went home with different men at the end of a night out.”
Victim 1’s friends were also contacted by a member of the defense team, who claimed to be a reporter, according to the filing.
The motion also points to opinion pieces placed by a publicist for the Alexanders, who claimed that the victim had “changed” her story and sought to point out alleged inconsistencies in the allegations she shared with a New York Times reporter, in a civil lawsuit and with prosecutors.
Victim 1 reacted to one of those pieces on her private Instagram account, “mocking the paid-for content,” according to the motion. One of the subpoenas requests that she provide the Alexanders’ attorneys with all of her activity on Instagram for the two days surrounding her post about the article.
Accusers and anonymity
Anonymity has been a sticking point in the proceedings ahead of the trial, which is slated to begin in New York on Jan. 26.
A federal judge agreed last month to allow several alleged victims of the Alexanders to testify under pseudonyms, but women who made public accusations against one or more of the brothers, either through lawsuits or in news articles, will be required to use their real names.
Though their identities will be shielded from the public, defense attorneys for the brothers know the real names of the alleged victims.
The issue surfaced earlier this year when a New York court previously ruled that Lindsey Acree, a Brooklyn-based artist who sued Tal, Oren and two other defendants in February, would only be able to pursue her claims if she agreed to disclose her name.
Timmerman represented Acree, who alleged in the suit and in an account shared with the New York Times that she was sexually assaulted by Oren in his New York City apartment in 2011 and by Tal and an unknown attacker weeks later in the Hamptons. At the time, attorneys for the Alexanders pushed back against Timmermann’s arguments that using her client’s name could open her up to harassment from the brothers.
“Plaintiff does not provide any evidence that she will be, or has been, subjected to any sort of threats or intimidation,” their attorneys argued in court filings recounted by the Miami Herald in June. “To the contrary, by her own admission, Plaintiff publicized her allegations months ago and has not been retaliated against; unpleasant comments written by trolls on public websites do not amount to threats or intimidation warranting proceeding by pseudonym.”
The brothers are awaiting their trial at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where they’ve been held for more than a year after their December 2024 arrests in Miami.
Prosecutors allege that Oren, Tal and Alon participated in a conspiracy to commit sex trafficking between 2008 and 2021 that included working together to repeatedly and violently drug, sexually assault and rape dozens of women. The brothers have denied the allegations.
The latest indictment, unsealed in November, brought the total number of charges against the brothers to 11. That includes a charge of sexual exploitation of a minor against Oren, who prosecutors allege recorded himself engaging in sexual activity with a 17-year-old girl in Manhattan in 2009.
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